


It's Been Years

by ice_hot_13



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to 'Lying, Defining' (Marc/Taylor hockey players)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Been Years

 

Taylor tells everyone his marriage fell apart because of his trade. He tells them it was the distance, too far and just too much, that moving wasn’t a feasible option. He tells them that, because he’s already done enough to his now-ex-husband, and everyone doesn’t have to know the truth. Taylor should have known this would happen; he married someone who wasn’t Marc. He should have expected this, and he didn’t deserve the hope that made him think it might work.

He’s so busy with the divorce that he doesn’t check the roster of his new team.

\----

An old teammate’s on this team, and Taylor’s first night in town, he has some of Taylor’s new teammates meet them at a bar to get to know each other.

Halfway through the night, when it’s loud and dark, someone touches Taylor’s arm, and he turns.

“Marry me,” Marc says, yelling to be heard over the deafening noise.

\-----

Taylor wants to say yes.

\----

“You can’t just fucking _do_ that!” he yells when Marc calls him the next morning. Marc’s quiet.

“Do what?” he says, “anyways, I think there was too much drinking last night to say a proper hi, so. Welcome to the city?” he says, like three years ago, he didn’t destroy everything Taylor was, so thoroughly that he’s still broken.

Taylor had his heart broken by his best friend, married his second-best friend and hurt him, and here Marc is, sauntering back in expecting Taylor to be not even the same as he was when they parted, but like he thinks he’ll find a young Taylor, nineteen and never hurt.

Taylor’s twenty-seven now; he can’t even remember who he used to be.

\---

He wants Marc to suffer, maybe.

Well - no, that’s not quite it. He just wants Marc to _understand,_ to realise that Taylor is not - not some toy, some plaything that he can pick up and drop as he wants.

\-----

It isn’t easy to fall back into the way they are.

It _happens_ easily. They go out with teammates and come home together. Marc crushes Taylor against a wall and kisses him, hands lighting over Taylor’s skin not like he remembers but like this is all brand new. He doesn’t remember what Taylor likes. Taylor feels like himself for the first time in years; he’s broken and used and needy and it feels like home.

Marc holds Taylor when he’s asleep; this is why Taylor still can’t walk away, why he couldn’t stay away for good.

\------

It happens on the road, too. They don’t even room together; Marc’s been with this team longer, has a single room, and sometimes he just takes Taylor by the wrist and brings him upstairs.They barely talk anymore, except when Marc’s babbling out things in French that Taylor can’t understand.

\----

Marc falls asleep. Taylor lies awake telling himself _I am not just his toy_ over and over.

\----

He doesn’t know what to think, in this whirlwind of having Marc and being like before and all-new and rebroken. He almost caves and calls his ex-husband to just tell him the truth, that he’s falling apart and needs to know he can be okay again.

His ex-husband would probably say _you wanted this,_ because in some way, this is what Taylor left him for, left him for the dream of Marc, too foggy and unsure to know it would look like this.

\---

Out of a curiosity that will probably turn out to be sadistic, Taylor tries to remember the things Marc says in French, asks one of the French Canadians what it means. He’s ready to stammer out an explanation when it just turns out to be filth.

His teammate says, “it means ‘I’m sorry.’”

\-----

Marc doesn’t respond to big questions with even bigger answers; when Taylor asks _what are we doing,_ Marc shrugs and says he’s not sure. But, when Taylor asks _why do you do that now_ as Marc kisses his neck, Marc murmurs _I want it to feel different this time._

\---

Little questions. _Don’t you remember I like it fast, why do you hold my wrist and not my hand, why don’t we do this at home, did you know I was married and divorced, what happened to your marriage._

Marc says _I don’t want it to feel the same, because I used to hold your hand and I don’t want you to remember before, I didn’t think you’d want to see my house, I know, I never got married._

\------

“But Kelsey-”

“We were engaged for a long time.”

“How long?”

“A year and a half, I guess? It didn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“You, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“You’ve always been sure about everything, even when we were just kids. I just - I wasn’t, and I was scared because I thought I had to be sure to do anything. We were _teenagers,_ and you - you were sure everything would be worth it, _I_ would be worth it - how could you know?”

“I don’t know.”

“The only thing you’re not sure about - it’s the worst feeling, though. You’re always sure, you don’t _know -_ I didn’t ever feel worth it.”

\------

Taylor tries to remember and - how did he never see it? Marc’s never been sure of anything. He hates making decisions, he second-guesses and doubts himself and doesn’t believe in his own instincts - and maybe Taylor did that to him a long time ago, by being sure when Marc couldn’t be.

\------

“Why weren’t you sure about me?” Taylor asks. It’s late, so late, he’s awake at sunrise and so is Marc.

“I thought you were wrong,” Marc says quietly, “about me. I thought that at any minute, you’d realise you couldn’t be sure about me, and that you’d leave.”

“You beat me to it,” Taylor says, “that’s not - you did that to me, how could you do that?”

“Taylor-”

“If you loved me, you couldn’t do it,” Taylor says.

Marc has no answer; Taylor gets up and goes to sleep on the couch.

\-----

“I broke your heart,” Marc says the next morning, when he walks Taylor to his car, and Taylor can only stare.

“Yeah,” he manages, “yeah, you did.”

Marc’s quiet, looks down. “That broke mine,” he whispers, and then he walks away.

\------

It’s strange to think that he broke Marc long before Marc even laid a hand on Taylor’s heart.

Marc’s been hearing Taylor voice in his head for a decade, saying _are you sure?_ every time he tried to make a decision, until Marc wasn’t capable of deciding anything anymore.

\------

Marc apologises on a rainy morning.

“What do you want from me?” Taylor asks.

“I want you to marry me,” Marc says, “that - that’s what I’m sure of. I can be sure about that. Someday - I want you to want to marry me.”

“I’ve missed you,” Taylor whispers, “I’ve just missed you.”

Marc’s kissed him a hundred times since Taylor came here, but this is the first time Marc hugs him, holds him tight and doesn’t let go, and Taylor’s been waiting to come home to this.

\----

Taylor forgot this, somehow. He thought they were built on the fear and unsureness and one-sided need, but that was just what they stumbled into. This time - this time, he can remember, it’s been years and finally he can remember. They’re built on reaching out and finding each other, on forgetting homesickness and finding a place to belong. They were once two boys with big dreams and no hand to hold, and they reached for each other.

\-----

  



End file.
